Just hours after the Falls High School swimming pool reopened Monday, swimmers reported “that the bottom felt squishy.”
When staff members took a look, they confirmed the tiles at the bottom of the pool are buckling and breaking.
The swimming pool, which closed following the conclusion of the 2011-12 boys swimming and diving season, reopened Monday after a deepening project budgeted at $198,000 wrapped up this summer.
The end of the pool where the starting blocks are located was deepened to 5 feet to comply with a rule implemented by the National Federation of State High School Associations that calls for a minimum depth of 4 feet to be able to use starting blocks.
Jeff Veeder, maintenance director for the Falls Public Schools, addressed the school board about the issue Tuesday evening at a special board meeting.
Superintendent Nordy Nelson handed out “a very rough sketch” of the damage and took the board and the public to see the pool first-hand after the meeting.
“This has been ongoing for the last few days with the pool,” Nelson said. “Basically, in straight lines — horizontal and vertical — two-thirds of the pool is breaking up.
“The tile is coming up and forming teepees in a line.”
Nelson and Veeder said they are hesitant to speculate on the cause of the issue. Veeder added he does not have a “definitive answer as to why it’s doing what it’s doing.”
“I wish I could tell you that, but it would only be certainly a speculation, and I think we need to have the correct answer before we proceed,” Veeder said.
A representative from the Minnetonka-based project management firm TSP is expected to visit the school today to move forward with a resolution. The district will keep the pool open for now, Veeder said.
“We don’t see any health risks immediately and we want to see how big is this problem,” he said to the board. “We want to make sure that if we have to go in and drain the pool and start over, whatever we’re doing, we do it right.”
At first glance, Veeder said, he and school staff “only noticed a maybe 20 by 20 area” breaking up.
He said workers began filling the pool about two and a half weeks ago.
“So it’s been full of water for approximately two weeks, and we saw no problems,” Veeder said. “Of course we didn’t have the occupation in the pool — no one was walking on it.”
He said he is puzzled by the fact that throughout the project, many school staff have walked on the bottom of the pool before it was filled with water during the “very long and drawn-out project.”
School board member Will Kostiuk said when he looked at the pool, “it looked like the glue was giving away — the adhesive that was holding the tiles down.”
Veeder warned of “arriving at an early speculation,” adding that there were several contractors involved in the project at different stages, and that the district will communicate with them as the investigation continues.
School board chair Stuart Nordquist said TSP is expected to inform the board of its evaluation of the situation by the next regular board meeting Monday.
Nelson informed the board that the district will withhold all further payments until the issue is remedied, and that he will report the situation to the district’s insurance carrier.
“Because if this gets into litigation, we’d need to have the insurance pay the bill — and it’d be a big one,” Nelson said.
